Fellowship means having a close relationship with God and sharing this relationship with other believers.
Fellowship in the Old Testament
At first, Adam was put in the Garden to enjoy friendship with God. When Adam and Eve chose to be independent instead of living under God's kind care, their relationship was broken. As a result, Adam and Eve hid from God (Genesis 3:8). But God immediately looked for them and shared his plan to save sinners through the work of the Savior (3:15).
The Old Testament tells how God started to bring special people into a relationship with himself. Enoch is described as a man who walked with God (Genesis 5:22, 24). Noah also walked with God (6:9). And Abraham, the father of Israel, is called “a friend of God” (James 2:23). No one in the Old Testament had a closer relationship with God than Moses during his 40-day meeting with God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24). Later, David wrote psalms that show a heart deeply connected with God (Psalms 16, 34, 40, 63).
Fellowship in the New Testament
Because of Jesus's work on the cross, God now lives in each believer’s heart (John 14:23). As a result, the relationship we now have under the new covenant is the important, spiritual union of the believer with Jesus (14:20–21). A relationship with God is the goal of the Christian life (1 John 1:3), and this relationship will be made perfect forever when we see our Savior “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). This is when God dwells with his people forever (Revelation 21:3).
The good news restores our relationship not only with God but also among believers. Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples shows the connection between our relationship with God and with others (Mark 14:22–25). In the upper room, Jesus shared a special meal with his disciples. The hearts of Jesus and his followers were joined by a deep love and commitment. Later, the disciples found their hearts were strongly united because of their shared loyalty to Jesus. After the cross and the coming of the Spirit, the church was born. The church is a new group of people in a relationship with God and each other.
The early chapters of Acts show a deep friendship among the first Christians. The believers met in house groups for teaching, fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer (Acts 2:42, 46). Their sense of unity was so strong that the Christians shared their possessions and gave them to their brothers and sisters in need (2:44–45; 4:32–35). Perhaps the main feature of this early Christian fellowship was the love among the believers (1 Thessalonians 4:9; 1 Peter 1:22).
Driven by love, Paul organized a collection among the non-Jewish churches for poor believers in Jerusalem. Romans 15:26 talks about the gifts of the churches in Macedonia and Achaia. Paul uses the common Greek word for “fellowship" to describe this “contribution.” Similarly, the fellowship that the Philippian church shared with Paul assumed the form of gifts to support the apostle’s work (Philippians 1:5; 4:14–15).
The Bible uses several images to describe the spirit of togetherness which was typical of the early church. The first is “God's household” (Ephesians 2:19; 1 Timothy 3:15), or “the family of faith” (Galatians 6:10). In God’s household, love and hospitality should be the rule (Hebrews 13:1–2). Also, the church is shown as God's family on earth (Ephesians 3:15). God is the Father, and believers are his faithful sons and daughters. The life of God’s family should be guided by love, kindness, compassion, and humility (Philippians 2:1–4). Finally, the Christian fellowship is shown as the “one new person” or the “one body” (Ephesians 2:15–16). Despite great natural differences in the body, the Holy Spirit joins believers together into a single organism (4:4–6). In this fellowship of love, no believer is unimportant. Each member has been given gifts for the spiritual growth of the entire body.
Guidelines for Christian Fellowship
The Bible explains how to have true fellowship in 1 John 1:7: “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” This means that when we live according to God's truth, just as God is truth, we can have real spiritual communion (a special relationship through God's Spirit) with other believers. Jesus Christ is the one who makes fellowship possible. We can only have true fellowship with other Christians when we first have a close relationship with Jesus.
Just as light and dark cannot exist together, believers cannot have true fellowship with people who do not believe in Jesus. The Bible also says Christians should not have close fellowship with people who claim to be believers but who:
reject Jesus's teachings (2 John 1:9–11)
do evil things
worship false gods
are often drunk
steal from others (1 Corinthians 5:11).
The Bible gives several guidelines for improving the communion of believers in the body:
Love one another with the same compassion that Jesus showed to his own (John 13:34–35; 15:12). The law of the fellowship should be the rule of love (Hebrews 13:1).
Develop a spirit of humility that seeks to honor others (Philippians 2:3–5).
Help fellow believers by sharing their burdens (Galatians 6:2).
Share material blessings such as money and food with brothers and sisters in need (2 Corinthians 9:13).
Gently correct a sinner while helping to find solutions to the problems (Galatians 6:1).
Help a fellow believer in times of suffering (1 Corinthians 12:26).
Pray for one another in the Spirit without stopping (Ephesians 6:18).
The Christian should seriously consider the saying of an unknown saint, “You cannot come close to God if you are far from your brother.”